Brownlee Brothers sounds like the name of a shop in Leeds in the days when we were taken to buy 'sensible shoes' at Horne's and saved up for the very first floral ties to appear at Addy's men's outfitters in Headingley and Rawdon.

Fittingly, the latest athletes to crown Yorkshire's wonderful Olympics are thoroughly Leeds, both in home and loyalty. Both appeared on the cover of our 'phone directory four years ago, so even the non-sporty can recognise them. Alistair forsook Girton college, Cambridge, after a term to return to Leeds and develop his sporting skills with a degree in sports science and physiology at Leeds University two years ago. Jonny graduated from Leeds in history this summer.

Their father Dr Keith Brownlee works just down Infirmary Street from the uni, as a consultant paediatrician in Leeds General Infirmary. His patients, and many others, had their afternoon today enhanced by thunderous shouts of "Brownlee! Brownlee!" from the crowd watching the triathlon on the big screen in neighbouring Millennium Square.

And pedalling... Photograph: Jason O'Brien/Action Images

Both brothers are experienced fell-runners, practitioners of that extraordinarily tough sport which once saw a competitor in the Grasmere fell race complete the course with two broken ankles. Dave Woodhead, who organises races from the Old Sun hotel in Haworth with his wife Ellen, says:

Alistair is muck and nails. He's a Yorkshire animal.

But he's a gracious kind of animal. The children of two doctors, both Brownlees have a name for sporting behaviour and keeping an eye out for other competitors. A revealing anecdote by another pal of Alistair's recalls how they met on one of the tops in the Dales where the triathlete was out running and his friend on a walk. Politely, Brownlee stopped to have a friendly word.

They were chatting away when a pack of other runners appeared among the distant bilberries, each with a number card on his chest, like Alistair's. "Ah," said Yorkshire's latest gold medallist, "I'll have to go. I'm in a race."

And swimming. Photograph: Robert F. Bukaty/AP

His gold and Jonny's bronze take Yorkshire back up the medal table to tenth place, with a quarter of Team GB's golds plus two silvers and three bronzes. Success is even more highly-focussed on the Leeds North West constituency of Liberal Democrat MP Greg Mulholland. The area now has one of each kind of medal, with the Brownlees sharing a house in Bramhope and cyclist Lizzie Armitstead down the other side of the Chevin in Otley.

Needless to say, he and the rest of us are now demanding pillar boxes in all three colours.